Idaho anti-abortion law: No Exceptions

With its sponsor saying the “hand of the Almighty” was guiding lawmakers, the Idaho House of Representatives passed legislation that bans abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

The law, which now heads to Gov. Butch Otter for signing, makes no exceptions for rape, incest, fetal abnormality, or the emotional health of the mother. The law allows post-20 week abortions only when a mother’s life or physical health is threatened.

“Is not the child of that rape of incest also a victim?” State Rep. Shannon McMillan asked during floor debate. “It didn’t ask to be here. It was here under violent circumstances perhaps, but that was through no fault of its own.”

The new Idaho law is similar to a similar measure passed in Nebraska. Over the past two decades, the National Right to Life Committee has used the conservative state as a testing ground for laws restricting abortion.

State Rep. Brent Crane, chief House sponsor, said the “hand of the Almighty” was guiding passage, adding: “His ways are higher than our ways. He has the ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples.”

The Idaho attorney general’s office has opined that the legislation is unconstitutional, violating the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision on states’ limits on abortions before the fetus becomes viable.

Idaho has been down this route before.

Betsy Russell, in the Spokesman Review, wrote Wednesday:

“Idaho spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars defending unconstitutional anti-abortion state legislation passed in the 1990s, including $380,000 in attorney fees the state was ordered to pay in 2007 to Planned Parenthood of Idaho after that group challenged unconstitutional provisions in a 2005 abortion parental consent law.”

In 1990, the Idaho Legislature passed legislation that would have banned all abortions except in cases of rape reported to police within seven days, incest (if the victim was under 18), severe fetal deformity or threat to the physical health of the mother.

Idaho’s last Democratic governor, Cecil Andrus, vetoed the bill even though a critic of abortion.

“The bill before me clearly asserted that the life of the unborn child carried precedence over the life of the mother,” Andrus later wrote. “An element of equity and fairness — and, above all, compassion, was lacking.”

The latest law won House passage by a 54-14 vote: All 13 Democrats in the Idaho House voted against it: 53 out of 54 Republicans supported it.